Hell Night
by notmanos
Summary: (Pre-season 1) Teenaged Dean and Sam are left to their own devices when things go wrong on one of John's hunts, and an evil force seems to be stalking them. To survive the night, they have to figure out what it is, and how to save their father.
1. Graceless

_**1 - Graceless**_

Dean wondered if Halloween had ever really been fun.

Well, he loved the horror movie marathons they usually put on, and the free candy, but the rest of it was pretty fucking cheesy, wasn't it? Especially if you knew actual monsters existed, and while some took advantage of the camouflage of humans in costumes, most of the time they took the night off.

He took Sammy out trick or treating once or twice, when he was younger and more innocent, and it had been kind of fun, even though he was only the chaperon. Of course, he never told Dad. Dad probably would have been mad at him about it. Disappointing the old man - Dean was sure he'd been inadvertently acing that category his whole life.

Dean ate another mini candy bar - fun size his ass - as he got off the bus and started walking back to the apartment they were currently staying in.

In all honesty, after that whole thing in Greenridge, where he ended up in the hospital for a bit, he was glad to be back on the East Coast, despite its weird humidity. And in New York City on Halloween! It was amazing. Okay, so the place they were staying in, a loan from a hunter currently out of the country, was a surprisingly small four room apartment, and Dean was crashing on the couch. But he didn't care. NYC! A big city for once in their godforsaken lives. Dean felt energized to be in a city where him and monsters weren't the only things up at three in the morning.

He wasn't sure how long this would last, though, which was kind of a bummer. Dad had said they wouldn't be here long, only a couple of weeks, and that was last week. And he and Sammy had seen him ... three times? One of those times, he got up to find Dad had come in sometime during the night, and was asleep. Dean never saw him conscious. They mostly communicated through notes on the fridge, or on the bathroom mirror. Dad said he was here trying to help a fellow hunter track down a haunted object ... but Dean knew it was a lie, right? Of course it was. He thought Dad was tight lipped before, but after Greenridge he had somehow retreated deeper into himself, which Dean had not thought possible. It was the mention of a demon being in town, wasn't it? Must have been. Or maybe Dad was disappointed in him almost bleeding to death rather than saving Sammy. Six of one, half dozen of the other. Choose your favorite.

He pulled out the folded up flyer he'd shoved in his coat pocket. Tonight, there was a punk show at this small club called The Armory, going until two in the morning, and Dean was determined to sneak out and see some of it. Assuming Dad didn't come home in the meantime, and Sammy was okay.

The weird thing? He would swear that every time they stayed in proximity to a big city, Sammy got sick. This week, he had a cold. He was miserable, but who wasn't with a cold? Dean was kind of surprised he hadn't gotten it, but in an apartment this small, it was only a matter of time. Dad wouldn't get it. He'd have to be home to be in any danger of that. Not that he was bitter.

Of course he was bitter. He was a nineteen year old in New York - he should be tearing it up, not taking care of a sick fifteen year old, and wondering if he should leave Dad some dinner, or just assume he'd grab some wherever the hell he was.

Oh god - he sounded like someone's mom. Or wife. Goddamn it! That's why he had to get out to the show tonight. Could he be normal for once? Was that too much to ask? He had a new fake ID that put him at twenty two, and he was eager to try it out. Getting shitfaced on Halloween was a teen rite of passage. Or it should be if it wasn't.

The landlord was adamant about no kids trick or treating in his building, which was fine by Dean, and really, probably didn't apply much to this place. Dean wasn't sure any kids actually dwelled here, It seemed to be mostly single guys and old ladies, which was a weird demographic collision, but whatever. In New York, space was at a premium, so you took whatever you could get.

When he entered the apartment, Sam was sitting on the couch, reading a book. For the first time this week, he wasn't wrapped up in a blanket. "Heads up" Dean said, and tossed him one of the candy bars he'd picked up today. Sam put the book down and caught it.

He looked at it with a frown. "Do I want to know how many of these you've eaten?"

"Nope." He sounded normal, not like some cursed snot monster, and he seemed almost back to his usual, annoying self. Except he was still flushed. When Sam got sick it seemed to emphasize his paleness. "How're you doing?"

"I'm fine. I think it's gone now."

Dean put a hand on his forehead, which Sam tried to smack away, but Dean managed to do it. "Still got a temperature."

"Not much of one. I'm fine. Being locked in here is driving me crazy. Take me with you tonight."

"Who says I'm going anywhere tonight?" Damn it.

"All the flyers up and down the block."

"I thought you were stuck in here," Dean replied, getting a soda out of the fridge. He desperately wanted a beer, but the last time Dad saw one in the fridge, he gave him hell for it.

"I can look out windows," Sam said, putting his book aside. "Come on. You know I'm just going to sneak out if you leave me here."

Dean narrowed his eyes at him. "Not if I tie you up."

Sam smirked back at him. If he could be a cocky little bastard he probably did feel better. "Do it. I'll meet you at the club."

"It has an age limit dude. You're too young."

"It's Halloween. I'll sneak in and wear a mask. As long as I don't order any booze, no one should know."

Dean rolled his eyes, and didn't acknowledge that maybe that could work. He would have doubted that Sam could sneak into a club without being noticed, but they were Winchesters and they were all really good at being where they weren't supposed to be. It was kind of their reason for existing.

Dean was wondering how he could keep an eye on Sam while getting wasted - and maybe hooking up with someone? That was probably really wishful thinking - when the phone rang. He answered it, sure it was someone calling Juan, who was still off in Canada. "Yeah?"

"Dean," his father said. There was a ton of static on the line, and it sounded like he was shouting at him from the end of a long tunnel. "Defcon one. Look at my top shelf and get Sam out of there. Meeting point one. ASAP. I need -" His voice died in static.

"Dad?" Dean replied, alarmed. He should be used to getting houses dropped on him from clear blue skies by now, but somehow he wasn't. Now Sam looked alarmed, staring at him from across the room. Dean tried to call him back, but all he got was his voice mail. That wasn't good.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

Dad loved his codes. Defcon one was an obvious one - they were in present and immediate danger. He had to arm up and be prepared to fight his way out. Meeting point one was an all night diner a few blocks away. The assumption there was no monsters would brazenly attack where there a ton of witnesses, and that was usually true. "We gotta get out of here," Dean said, letting his training take over. He could be worried about Dad later. Right now, he had a job to do. Tool up and get Sammy out of here.

He went to Dad's room, and retrieved the bag of weapons from under the bed. He took a semi-automatic, made sure it was loaded, and took a couple of extra clips. He also chose a smaller gun, as it was always good to have back up. He also took a hunting knife, and a silver knife, which he shoved in his boot. Dean went and checked the top shelf in Dad's closet, not sure why he added that, until he groped around blindly and felt velvet. He pulled down two small black velvet bags, which he opened up to find holly leaves, salt, sand, a couple of dried beans, and a coin with a hole in the middle. Not a hex bag - a protection bag? Of some kind. Dean had never seen them before, and assumed they were new.

Sam appeared in the doorway. "Dude, what's going on?"

"Defcon one," Dean said, tossing him one of the protection bags. Dean put the other in the front pocket of his jeans.

"What?" Sammy looked in the bag. "What the hell is this?"

"Don't know, don't care. Keep it on you." He went back to the bag, and pulled out a pistol and a knife for Sam, which he gave him while Sam was still taking in everything in shocked disbelief.

Seeing the gun and knife Dean was holding out to him seemed to shake him out of it. "Holy fuck, you're serious."

"Yep. We need to be out of here as of five minutes ago." Dean had some holy water in a flask, and figured that would have to do. He had no idea what was coming for them, or why it would get here before Dad. But he was as ready as he could ever be.

"If this is some Halloween prank, you got me," Sam said, trailing after him.

Dean grabbed Sam's coat from the closet and tossed it at him. Since he still hadn't put the gun and knife away, it landed on the floor in front of him. "Now Sammy. Let's go."

"Don't call me Sammy," he snapped. He finally tucked the knife away, and picked up his jacket, where he stowed the gun. "What's happened to Dad?"

"No idea," Dean admitted, carefully looking out the peephole and trying to see every possible angle before opening the door. The hallway looked empty, but he knew never to trust that. Honestly, you couldn't trust anything. Dean was surprised he ever did.

He had a gun hidden in his coat pocket and his finger was currently on the trigger. First threatening thing was getting shot in the face. The worst thing? Depending on what it was, it might not even notice.

Dean held a finger to his lips, signaling to Sammy they should be quiet, and he finally stowed his teenage bullshit and listened to him. They were only on the second floor, so it didn't take long to get out of the building, although his paranoia being on high alert made him tense up at ever creak on the stairs.

Outside, it was better and slightly worse. Sunset was coming soon, and more people were on the streets. Few in costumes ... for now. It would get worse the darker it got.

As they walked, Dean trying to keep an eye on everything - okay, here was where big cities sucked; so many people, so much traffic - Sam asked him what Dad said on the phone. He repeated it verbatim, as he knew Sam wouldn't let it drop if he didn't.

Sam seemed as confused as Dean did by the call, but waited to bring it up until they hit the diner. "What the hell? What was he after?"

The diner wasn't super busy, but it was warm and smelled good, like burgers and coffee. A tinny radio tuned to one of the local Spanish stations was barely audible over the ambient noise of the restaurant. Dean saw a booth in the back that still afforded them a view out the window, and headed for it. Sam followed, because he had no choice in the matter. "I dunno," Dean admitted, sliding into the booth. "All he told me was he and Rob were looking for a haunted object. That's it. You probably saw him last. He say anything to you?"

Sam slid into the seat opposite him, and grimaced down at the table when he saw it still had crumbs on it. He wiped them off with his sleeve, and it was such a prissy move, Dean almost laughed. "No, but he never tells me anything. You're usually the one with all the dirt."

"Not since Greenridge." Dean kept looking out the window, ready to identify any threat, or Dad. He was really hoping Dad got here first, because he had so many questions for him.

"What do you mean?"

"I think he doesn't trust me since I failed to save you."

Sam stared at him, hollow eyed and still flushed. Dean hoped everything wasn't aggravating his fever, but he had bigger problems to worry about. "Are you kidding me? We never would have made it out of that forest alive if not for you."

"Dad didn't see it that way."

Sam made a noise of disgust and shook his head. "What an asshole."

"Hey."

"You almost died trying to save us, and he sees that as a failure on your part? You should be fucking furious. Why aren't you?"

Truth was, Dean was kind of mad at his Dad. He did the best he could, especially since he didn't know he was walking into a situation, and had never faced that kind of baffling threat before. But he also knew getting mad at him would get him absolutely nowhere. He just had to promise Dad he would do better next time, and prove it. Dean simply hadn't expected that chance to come so soon.

Dean had no idea what to say to that, so he was glad the waitress came over and asked them what they wanted. Dean ordered a coffee, because he felt the caffeine might help him be hyper-alert. Sam stuck with water, which meant he must have been feeling better, because he was back on his usual bullshit.

He knew Sam might demand more answers, so he tried to call Dad one more time, and again got his voice mail. Dean reported they were at meeting point one, and hung up. He would only want relevant information.

He put the phone on the table, and realized he was eager for a call back. Damn it. He had to focus. What did he know about Rob? Widowed hunter, lived in the Bronx ... anything else?

Sam, proving he would never stop being a pain in his ass, asked, "So what's our next move?"

"Dad told us to wait here."

Sam widened his eyes slightly, enough to make a point. "That's not a plan. That's stupidity."

Dean counted off relevant details on his fingers. "Firstly, we have no idea what's coming for us, ergo we don't know how to fight it. Secondly, Dad clearly wants to meet up with us here. Thirdly, running around with no idea of who are opponents are or what they want to do to us is suicide."

"Using ergo doesn't make you sound smarter."

Dean slapped at Sam, deliberately hitting only his bangs. "Don't sass me. This is a crisis."

"Is it? How do we know this isn't some trap? Maybe a monster got our number, and was imitating Dad's voice. Maybe we've just played into their hands."

Wow, that was far fetched. Sam really liked playing devil's advocate, didn't he? Dean wondered how much of this was teenage insolence, and how much of this was genuine bedrock personality disorder.

The waitress brought his coffee, and when she was gone, Dean pushed his phone across the table. "Call Dad yourself. See what happens."

Sam looked at his phone like he was thinking of actually doing it, and Dean honestly wished he would. Although he didn't look forward to refereeing the fight Dad and Sam would probably have about this later. Lately, it seemed like they'd been arguing a lot more, and always about stupid shit. Dean wasn't sure why. Hormones?

"Is there any chance this could be a test?" Sam wondered.

Dean was immediately baffled by that. And mortified. "What?"

"Dad testing you. You said he hasn't trusted you since Greenridge. What if this is part of that?"

"He wouldn't be that cruel," Dean said, and then immediately wondered if he was lying to himself. He wouldn't be that cruel to Sam. But to Dean? Maybe.

Oh god, what if it was a test? But he'd passed it, right? He did what he said. This had to put him back in the good books. Possibly.

Something made Dean look across the street. He wasn't sure what or why, exactly. Movement caught his eye. He saw a balding guy in a cheap three piece suit, who looked like someone's accountant. He had a baseball bat and as Dean looked on, he started smashing the windshield of a parked car. Once he had completely shattered it he moved on to the next car.

Sam finally looked, and asked, "What the hell is that guy doing?"

"Working out some road rage?" Dean guessed, but there was something about his face that was disconcerting. The way he was grinning, it was hard to say if he was laughing or snarling. Saliva was now dripping from his mouth as he busted the windshield of a third car.

"Is this what Dad was afraid of, or just a New Yorker hitting his last nerve?" Sam asked.

Good question. Dean was starting to wonder that himself. But his gut was telling him this was bad.

A guy now came up to the man with a bat - one of the cars owners he bet - but before he could do more than yell a curse word, the man had turned the bat on him, and was bashing him as enthusiastically as he had the windshields. Dean bolted up, and ran for the door. Yeah, it was human on human violence, as far as he could tell, but he wasn't going to sit by and watch.

As soon as Dean pushed open the door and stood on the sidewalk, he heard a cacophony of screams and curses.

Looking down the street, the way they had come, he saw maybe a dozen fights. People grappling hand to hand, biting kicking, screaming incoherently at each other. An old lady had a large kitchen knife, and was repeatedly stabbing a man who could have been her husband. A large man was repeatedly throwing himself at the locked door of a brownstone, trying to break it in. Two kids who couldn't have been older than ten were attacking each other with skateboards and a metal pipe. While he watched, Dean saw a driver hit the gas and aim his car right onto the sidewalk, where he crushed a couple of grappling people. He was paralyzed with a need to stop all of the fights, and being unable to break into a dozen different people to do so.

Sam had followed him out, and gasped at seeing the carnage for himself. "What the fuck..?"

Yeah, that was Dean's feelings as well. What the hell was going on?


	2. Boy Division

_**2 - Boy Division**_

Dean shook himself out of his paralysis, because he had to. He had to get Sam away from this horror show. But go where, exactly? What a time to blank on whether they'd decided on a secondary meeting spot or not.

The waitress came out, maybe because Dean hadn't paid for the coffee but she gasped and stilled as soon as she saw the killing spree going on down the street. "What the hell?"

"Go back inside," Dean told her, glad to have someone around he could issue instructions to. It made him feel like maybe he had a handle on this, when he was nowhere close to grasping it. Feign confidence while trying to be strong for other people. "Close up, call 9-1-1, hide in the back."

She nodded. It was all sensible. "You kids need to get back inside."

"No, we're getting out of here," he assured her, and started heading up the street, away from the carnage. At least no one had come for them yet, but Dean imagined it was only a matter of time.

Sam said, in a really strange voice, "Dean."

He looked back at the carnage, and saw a familiar figure walking up the street, although it took him a couple seconds to place him. Rob, the hunter Dad was working with today. He was striding up the sidewalk, seemingly oblivious to the multiple assaults happening around him. He was grinning ear to ear, holding a camping hatchet ... and had blood on his blue button down shirt. Was it his blood? Dean rapidly scanned him, but if Rob was bleeding, Dean couldn't see from where. "Where's our Dad?" Dean asked. He motioned for Sam to stay where he was, and started walking towards him. "Rob?"

Rob was a kind of nondescript looking guy. If there was an "average hunter" listed in an encyclopedia, his picture would be right beside it. Average height, maybe ten pounds overweight, with a scraggly, close cropped beard, and thinning brown hair perpetually covered by a baseball cap. What made Rob unique was he kind of always smelled like pencil shavings, which Dean thought was really weird. Why did he smell like pencils? He actually asked Dad once, and he could only shrug. It was simply a mystery never to be solved.

Dean stopped walking, because he was getting too close to the carnage zone, and Rob was approaching him anyways. Still smiling, still cradling his camping hatchet like a pet. Dean was getting major freakazoid vibes from even before he started speaking. "Rob, where's my Dad?" Dean tried, one last time.

Rob was speaking now, but it was so low Dean couldn't hear him until he got closer. And then what he heard was a sort of breathless ramble, with no beginning and no end. "-deadanditwasntmyfaultJohnyouweretoofarawayandtheyatemykidsankilledmywifeandwhyshouldyouhavelivingkidsyouneverseewhenmykidsaredeadanditwasntmyfaultJohn-"

Dean tried to make sense of what he was saying, and when he did, he was horrified, and knew that hatchet was for him and Sam. He was here to kill them. Was Dad warning them about Rob? "What did you do to our Dad?" Dean asked, fearing the answer.

When he was within range, Rob lunged at him, swinging the hatchet wildly. Dean knew it was coming, though, and dodged the initial swing, while planting a firm kick in Rob's midsection. It sent him staggering back a couple steps, and should have knocked the wind out of him, but no such luck. He attempted to chop him with the hatchet again, and Dean knew he had to get it out of his hands, so this time he grabbed his wrist as the slice was coming in, and attempted to wrest it from him. But Rob was stronger than he looked and crazed as well.

Dean really didn't want to hurt him, but he was here to hurt him and Sammy, and he may have hurt their Dad. He had no choice. Dean still felt bad when he stepped under Rob's arm, while still holding on to his wrist, and twisted.

His wrist snapped with a sound like a branch breaking under the weight of snow, and Dean expected the hatchet to fall, but even Rob's fingers weren't reacting correctly. Somehow they were still hanging on to the weapon.

Rob tried to overpower him even from his current awkward position, reaching for Dean's throat with his free, uninjured hand. "Sorry dude," Dean said, kicking the side of Rob's knee. He might have been acting weird, but basic physics should have been working.

And it was. That leg gave way beneath him, and Rob ended up on his knees on the asphalt, the hatchet finally jarred from his hand. Dean instantly kicked it away as Rob punched him right in the balls.

It was like a lightning bolt hit him right in the junk. The pain was overwhelming and indescribable - it felt like he blacked out for a second - and Dean fell against a parked car wondering if he was going to barf, and kind of hoping he'd drop dead right that second. He didn't.

But Rob was more than happy to help him get there, as he grabbed Dean by the throat with his one working hand and squeezed like he was a balloon in desperate need of popping. Dean didn't want to stab the guy, but he was on the verge of doing so when Sam slammed Rob over the head with an empty, severely dented metal garbage can.

That staggered Rob, and now Dean was sure he could move again, although goddamn, he was probably going to have to spend half the night with a bag of ice on his crotch. Dean poured his pain and frustration into a right upper cut, his best punching style by far, and he snapped Rob's head back so hard he collapsed to the sidewalk as if shot. Dean was kind of hoping he was still conscious because he wanted answers as to what he'd done to their Dad, but he was also glad he was unconscious, because he didn't want to keep beating on this guy. He was one of Dad's friends, before he tried to kill them. And maybe killed Dad. Okay, maybe he would like to keep beating on this guy.

"What the hell was he saying?" Sam asked.

Oh good, he hadn't heard it. "Something about his wife and kids being eaten," Dean said. It wasn't exactly a lie. It was one of the things he said.

Sam looked down at him, equally horrified and pitying. "What the ..? That was how he ended up widowed? What ate his family?"

Dean shrugged, and bent over to briefly try and catch his breath, and swallow back his nausea. Oh fuck, getting punched in the balls was the fucking worst. Honestly, he would have rather gotten a hatchet wound. "You okay?" Sam asked.

"Always wear a cup," Dean said. At least there was zero chance he was getting laid tonight.

The noises of fighting were still going on around them, and he knew he had to get Sam out of here as of five minutes ago but shit, he wished he got hazard pay for this. Or any pay really. And a health care plan would have been nice. "Come on, we hafta go."

"Where?" Sam asked.

Great question. Dean wished he'd had more time to think about it. "Away from here. Then we'll worry about the rest of it."

"That doesn't seem great," Sam said.

Dean took a moment to search Rob's pockets to see if he had left a clue or something of where he and Dad had been, but he found nothing, except a small velvet bag, sort of like the ones Dad had, only this had slightly different stuff in it. Stuff that didn't work? These bags might be their only clue, and Dean had no idea how to interpret them.

They took a couple of alley shortcuts Dean had learned, because one of the first things he ever learned wherever they were was the teen make out spots (too damn many in New York) and the reasonable shortcuts you could use if, say, a monster was after you. They were several blocks away before Dean remembered a trip he'd taken with Dad a couple of days ago. They went a few different places, picking up a bunch of supplies, some of which Dean didn't recognize. He found a concrete planter to sit on, and dug out the protection bag. He pulled out the coin, and studied it.

Sam leaned in for a look. "I think that's Japanese," he said, squinting at it.

"Which is kind of funny, because we picked it up in Chinatown," Dean said. He didn't actually remember Dad buying these, but that must have been where he picked it up. "This weird herbalist's shop. Probably a hunter's supply shop, but different than most. We need to go there. Maybe they can tell us what these are for."

"At least it's a destination." Sam said. Dean would have told him to stow the attitude, except he said it with a kind of exhaustion. He was still sick, no matter how much better he was, and also? Dean was with him. They had a place to go now. It was a start. A shitty one, sure, but more than they had five minutes ago. Before they left, Dean checked Dad's number again. No answer. If Rob had murdered him ... no, he couldn't think like that right now. He had to focus on the mission, getting Sam somewhere safe, and block all that other stuff out for now. Emotions interfered with the job - hadn't Dad always told him that? Drill down and focus, and don't let adrenaline or emotions or anything distract you. Do the job. Worry about the rest later.

Since it was quite a ways away, they ducked into the nearest subway tunnel. It was crowded, as it always seemed to be, but not so bad, considering it was Halloween. Dean always thought with their naturally flat, eerie lighting, and tons of city overhead, subways would be a great setting for a horror movie, and yet there weren't a lot of subway based horror movies. This was probably not the thing to be thinking about with what just happened above ground, but it got his mind off his balls, which continued to throb like zits ready to pop. He honestly hoped Rob didn't break something. If he had, maybe he should have stabbed him. Fair's fair.

Dean knew he wasn't smart enough to ever understand the subway system map or its arcane and surely richly symbolic guidebooks, but he knew the train they need to catch to get to Chinatown, and that was enough. Maybe if he lived in New York for years, he'd understand it, but right now, he could get by. He kept looking around, in case Rob or that wave of craziness had followed them, but he saw no signs of either. There were a lot of people around, though, and the subway could get pretty wild even without people suddenly going mental and attacking each other. For instance, there was a guy dressed as a hot dog currently heckling a busker. Dean didn't know what was going on there, and didn't care to know, because that was just a perfect New York moment. Context would spoil everything.

They didn't have to wait long. Their train was actually late, yet it was the one bit of good luck they'd had all night. The car was about three quarters full, but they found seats near the back. Sitting next to him, Dean could feel Sam was giving off heat like a furnace. On top of all of this, he still had to worry about the kid being sick. Maybe if they could take a break from the running and the fighting for a bit, it would help.

Sam looked around before leaning in and whispering, "Could it be a witch?"

Dean considered that. Could it be? The violence that overtook those people seemed spell like, and yet there were several problems with that idea. First, how powerful must they have been to cast such a far reaching spell? No hex bags were used there, unless she - or he - sprinkled them around the city like loose pennies. Even then, these protection bags they had hardly seemed super charged. Fuck, there were beans in it! Unless the witch was allergic to lentils, Dean failed to see how they helped at all. The coins were kind of interesting, because coins actually popped up a lot - as cursed objects, as protective wards, as symbols of luck or doom. Coins actually opened up the floor to way too many possibilities, so they needed to figure out which kind they were dealing with before options would fall away and certainties would emerge.

The train got under way, and Dean was still pondering options when the sea change began.

It started with the busker suddenly ripping off his guitar and beating the guy in the hot dog costume with it, sending wood and blood flying. A homeless guy started beating the shit out of someone in a Transit Authority uniform, while a middle aged woman who looked like someone's Great Aunt tackled a young guy in a leather jacket and started ripping his clothes off. A man in a business suit lit his briefcase on fire, and a teenage girl took off one of her high heeled shoes and started beating a man with it, making actual punctures with her stilettos. It look like she took out one of his eyes. It was insane, and Dean could only stare at it through the windows as the train picked up speed and disappeared into the tunnel.

He'd hoped Sam hadn't seen any of that, but he must have, because he stiffened, and whispered, "It can't be following us, can it?"

"No," Dean replied, but now he wondered. Could it? No, that was insane! How could it possibly be following them?

Could a spell follow them? Maybe. Definitely a creature of some sort could have although Dean hadn't noticed anything, and you'd think they'd have lost it at some point. New York was so crowded and hectic, even for pedestrians, tailing someone on foot was pretty difficult. But possibly not for this thing.

Maybe something was dogging them. He couldn't see it - or, most likely, simply hadn't noticed it yet - but it was on their trail. And it dragged this aura of crazy with them. For what reason? To what end?

That was the defcon one situation. A thing headed straight for them like a guided missile. But what could do this? And how was he supposed to stop it?

If Dad were here, he swear he'd punch him right in the nose.


	3. Climbing Up The Walls

_**3 - Climbing Up The Walls**_

While being sick really sucked, it did have its perks.

For instance, Sam knew he had a fever. He was hot, thirsty and sweaty, and yet still kind of cold, and his skin felt weird. Like it was turned inside out, and he could feel the fine hairs on the inside instead. It wasn't unpleasant.

It also gave everything a slight sheen of unreality. He could easily believe he was actually asleep at home, and this dream was simply a nightmare. Yes, it was especially detailed, but still, come on. He was a little worried that the guy hitting the hot dog with his guitar had Freudian implications, but Freud was a coke addict with mother issues and a penis fixation, and how much could you take him seriously? Also, he had Radiohead playing in his brain. It wasn't unpleasant either, but it added yet another layer of unreality to all of this. Maybe they decided to turn all of Ok Computer into a weird, long ass music video, and he was watching it, but he forgot.

Okay, yeah, this was probably bad. His fever, and whatever the hell was going on.

Did Rob actually attack Dean with a hatchet? That seemed like it just happened, and yet, couldn't have happened. Rob wouldn't attack him. Why would he do that? And did Sam really hit him with a garbage can? That seemed implausible as well. Didn't he say something about his family being eaten? What the shit ..? He knew most hunters had horror stories about how they got into the business, but that was grisly. Did it have anything to do with what was going on?

Sam rested his head against the glass, and it was blessedly cool. It seemed stuffy in the subway car but he didn't know if it actually was, or just him. Dean looked like he was sweating a little, but that might have simply been from the fighting, and taking a solid nut punch. That must have hurt like a bastard. Sam knew, if that happened to him, he wouldn't be getting up for a couple hours. He'd also want heavy drugs and major financial compensation.

"You doing okay, kid?" Dean asked, looking at him warily.

Sam wondered how much of this was showing on his face. Was music leaking out his ears? "Don't call me kid," he said. He couldn't have been all that bad if Dean was still annoying him.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Answer the question."

"As fine as I can be under the circumstances." That felt true. But Sam honestly wasn't sure if it was or it wasn't.

Dean must have picked up on his hesitation, because he frowned. "Sorry this is a real shitty Halloween."

"At least we rarely have good ones. We don't have much to compare it too."

"That's it, Sammy, look on the bright side."

Sam gave him a light elbow in the ribs. "What have I told you about Sammy?"

Dean chuckled. "You're gonna want me to call you Mr. WInchester next."

"You're the one coming up with dorky nicknames, not me."

"That's because you wouldn't like me calling you Samuel any better."

"How hard is Sam? It's three letters."

Dean mussed his hair, which he knew he hated and he did it anyways because he had an asshole for a brother. Sam finally shoved his hand away, but Dean grimaced as he rubbed his hand on his pant leg. "Dude, you're burning up."

"I'm fine, I'm just tired." The weird thing? He really was. He felt like he could take a nap right now.

"You still got that cough?"

"Please don't play mother now. We have bigger concerns. Like what the fuck, dude? What is making people freak out?"

"If I knew, I'd have killed it already. You see anything following us?"

"No." Not that he was paying that much attention. He kept his eyes open but he usually left the paranoid stuff to Dean, who majored in it.

"Something's gotta be. Something dragging chaos with it."

"Why? I mean, why are we the target?"

Dean shrugged, settling back in his seat uncomfortably. He was probably still hurting from the nut punch, which he totally understood. "I think we'd have to ask Dad about that." Dean scowled at nothing, but Sam was genuinely surprised. Was he finally getting mad at Dad? About fucking time! It was just sad it had to come to this extreme.

Sam sat there, zoning out for a minute, and he realized there was a man at the end of the car who was staring at him. Sam wondered if he was an asshat or one of the mentally ill people who wandered the city, when his eyes suddenly turned yellow. Sam felt it like a cold shock of fear down his spine.

"Dean," he hissed, under his breath.

"What?"

"Look at the guy at the end of the car."

He did. "Which one? The guy in the Batman costume eating the sandwich, or the guy reading his paper upside down?"

The yellow eyed guy smiled at him, and Sam looked at Dean, and tried to see why Dean couldn't see the guy who was right there, perfectly parallel to them. But when Sam looked back, he saw both the men Dean was talking about ... and the yellow eyed guy was gone.

Dean stared at him in obvious concern. "Sam, what's wrong?"

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He was hallucinating now? Great. He was falling apart at the worst possible time to do so. "I thought I saw something, but I didn't."

"What did you think you saw? You went white as a sheet."

"Nothing, I just thought the madness had caught up to the train." Mentally, Sam chided himself. Of course the yellow eyed demon wouldn't show up now and certainly not on the same train car as them. What if this was the first sign of flipping out? If it was, at least he knew, with the state he was in, Dean would have no problem knocking him out before he hurt somebody.

Sam sagged back against the window, and closed his eyes, as they felt hot and scratchy. He had them closed for a couple seconds, and then the train jolted to a stop, and Dean kept him from flying out of his seat. Shit, they were here already?

The missing time told Sam he had fallen asleep, and Dean let him stay that way. Sam was mad about this but not sure why. He actually felt a little better, which only made him angrier. He was probably mad at himself, but Dean was an easy target for it.

He had a mild headache as they got off the train, and while the subway stop was busy, and a little panic inducing due to all the costumed people going to or coming from Halloween parties, it didn't seem like the madness was here yet. It was probably just a matter of time, wasn't it?

Sam was wondering if it would be better if they could find an isolated spot, somewhere people weren't, but in New York City, that was close to impossible. Maybe if they went upstate, but how many people would die on their way there?

Also, theoretically, if they could work out a safe distance between them and other people, and managed it, what exactly would they do when they were alone with this thing? They didn't know what it was, or how to kill it, if it could be killed. If they died, the thing probably wouldn't disappear. It would go on killing, only without them to stop it. This felt like a truly frustrating, unsolvable puzzle.

Sam hadn't been to Chinatown before but he'd seen it in enough TV shows and movies that it felt kind of familiar. It was in that twilight time between dusk and genuine dark, and lights were just coming on. It was a very touristy place that also had an authentic neighborhood buried in it, so it had an interesting duality to it. And if he felt better, he might have appreciated it more, but right now, his own irritation was irritating him. God, he hated moods like this.

Dean led him to this tiny herbalists shop between a restaurant and a store that Sam couldn't figure out at all. The restaurant and unknown shop had signs in Chinese - probably Mandarin, to be specific - and English, but the shop only had Mandarin signs. He looked around for a hidden hunter's mark, but couldn't find it.

They walked into the shop to a small chorus of brass bells, and the smell seemed to violently slam him in the face. It was a melange of herbal scents, sure, but there was something else too. Something bitter, that seemed to stab into his sinuses like knitting needles. He stopped and grabbed his face, making Dean turn and give him the same concerned look he gave him on the subway. "What's wrong?"

"Don't you smell that?" Sam asked, shaking his head. How great was it that he finally got his sense of smell back after three clogged up days, only to experience the joys of the subway and now this place?

Dean stared at him blankly. "Yes. Herbs. Dude, it's better than the subway."

It seemed to fade in intensity, and Sam could manage it. He gave Dean an evil look. "You know what I mean."

Dean continued to look at him like he was unbalanced. Luckily, a woman appeared at the counter, and snapped, "You again? I don't do refunds." She was in her early fifties, Chinese, and maybe four foot eight at best. That explained why the check out counter was so low. She gave Sam a weird look he really had no hope of interpreting, before looking at Dean. "Oh, I thought your old man was here. Who's the -" Sam had no hope of understanding that word. Definitely Mandarin.

Dean didn't know it either, but rolled with it, because that was Dean's main coping mechanism - pretending he understood something until it became painfully obvious he didn't. The weirdest thing? It generally worked. People often didn't get to the painfully obvious point. So Sam was left feeling like an asshole, because no one else seemed to be aware that his doofy brother was conning them, and he was the only one upset about it. "Ah, this is my brother, Sam. I had a question I was hoping you could answer." Dean took out the protection bag, and opened it. "What the hell is this supposed to protect people from?"

The woman took it from Dean, and spilled it on the counter. It did seem like a weirdly random assortment of items, but most hex bags and protection bags did. "Your father didn't tell you?" she wondered. "Why come to me? Ask him."

"I'd love to, but I can't. You're our only hope in this matter." Somehow, Sam knew Dean was dying to say _'Help us, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope'_ , but didn't, because this was a deadly serious moment, and Sam would have kicked him if he had.

The woman picked up one of the holly leaves and sniffed it, before putting it down and sweeping all of the items back into the tiny velvet bag. "All I can tell you is it's protection from an oni, but I can't say which one. Too many of them hate the same things."

"A what?" Dean asked, taking back the bag.

"A Japanese demon," Sam said. Now he was feeling queasy again.

Dean subtly, but obviously to Sam, tensed. "How are they different than other demons?"

"Well, to start, they usually don't possess people. They're ugly motherfuckers with their own physicality." She reached up and fussed with her hair, and Sam saw she had a hunter's mark tattooed on the inside of her wrist. Damn, that was pretty brazen, considering how some demons and other monsters would react upon seeing it. But, judging by her age, it hadn't hurt her yet.

"So if we saw one, we'd know?"

She laughed. "Fuck yeah you would. They have horns, and they're usually red or blue, but sometimes green." At Dean's doubtful look, she added, "Some of them can be all but invisible when they wanna be. Noxious motherfuckers."

"Do any of them drag insanity with them?"

She narrowed her eyes at Dean. "Is that a serious question?"

"Yeah, it is."

"Oni can do a lot of shit, but they aren't my specialty."

Dean tucked the protection bag back in his pocket. "Do you know who has a specialty in them?"

She studied both of them for a moment, as if they were trying to con her. For some reason, her eyes lingered on Sam in a way he didn't like, like he was a puzzle she couldn't solve. It made him feel antsy. What was wrong with him? Was his fever showing on his face?

Finally she turned her head towards the back and shouted, "Shawn! Come out here and watch the counter!"

After a moment, a younger Chinese man, maybe early twenties, appeared, and he was built like a linebacker, with broad shoulders and muscular arms, and he was close to six foot even. The contrast between her and him was almost comical, and Sam wondered if this was her son or another relative.

She lifted up the counter and motioned them to come back. Dean led the way and Sam followed, still wondering what that scrutinizing glance was all about.

Shawn put the counter down behind them, and they followed the woman through a beaded curtain into the back, where there were lots of boxes and containers shoved against the walls, climbing up towards the ceiling. The smell back here was more like gunpowder and sage. Weird, but not bad. Certainly nothing that stabbed his sinuses.

She led them to a staircase so narrow, Shawn must have had to go up it sideways. On their way up, Dean admitted, "We think this oni is following us. Bad things are happening in its wake."

The woman made a negative noise. "You're safe here. This place is a mystical blind spot. I don't want anyone finding me who shouldn't. And any bad thing that comes through that door, they're gonna regret it. I've made this place a fortress."

"Could you teach me to do that?" Dean wondered. He was completely serious.

"Only if you've got several years to devote to learning herbalism, botany, and paganism."

"Okay yeah, that probably leaves me out."

Sam had to admit that sounded kind of fascinating. He had no idea there were even pagan hunters but, sure, yeah, why not? Demons weren't picky about their victims, and neither were monsters, usually. Anybody near by who was breathing was usually the entire criteria.

She led them to a tiny room that smelled like dust, and was crammed with shelves full of books. And what immediately got to Sam was their haphazard placement. Some were shelved neatly; others were in piles, at the end of shelves or on the floor. Some weren't books but scrolls that looked appropriately ancient, and weren't written in English. Everything seemed to have a fine layer of dust on it, and Sam was gripped with the urge to throw open a window and start cleaning and sorting, but he was tired enough to shove it aside. Not his things. Besides, maybe she had a system here. Not one he could see, but one that made sense to her.

She went to one of the shelves, scanned them, and pulled out a thick, leather covered book, which she thumped down on the only other piece of furniture in the small room, a tiny table that could have been a coffee table in a past life. "This is all about oni. It may help."

"Know of any way to kill them?"

She snickered. "Kid, I don't even know if that's possible. From what I understand, the Japanese sent most of the oni fleeing from their country due to the prevalence of Buddhist temples."

Sam, who had been looking at the book, glanced at her curiously. "Really?"

She nodded, making a necklace rattle. She was wearing a couple of them, but the one Sam could see was a tiny bottle with a scroll in it, and something else that looked white and granular. Salt? That was clever. It was probably a protection amulet of some sort. "Two things the oni seem to hate on principal are Buddhist temples and adzuki beans."

Dean smirked, like maybe he thought she was putting them on. "Adzuki beans?"

"I know right? It's fucking nuts. Why would demons hate beans? But the oni are weird. They're like a mishmash between monsters, demons, and spirits."

"The worst of all worlds," Sam muttered, opening the book, and sending up a cloud of dust right into his face. He had to turn away and sneeze for a minute or so.

"You have no idea, kid," she said.

Dean pulled her aside, and had a quick, whispered conversation with her. Despite the room being tiny, Sam couldn't hear what they were talking about, even though he'd finally stopped sneezing. He was pretty sure he was saying something about him being sick, which made him want to punch Dean in the arm. Why the hell was he talking about him?

"Thanks, Xiu" Dean said, as she headed back down the stairs.

"You knew her name and didn't introduce us?" Sam snapped. Somehow, that seemed typical.

Dean shrugged. "Sorry, Mr. Grumpypants. I didn't think you were in the mood."

Sam could feel irritation buzzing in the back of his head, and he wanted to go off on Dean, snap at him for all the stupid nicknames and condescension, but Sam caught himself in the nick of time. What exactly was he mad about? Dean being thoughtless? That wasn't malicious. Sam was tired and sick, and he didn't want to fight some weird ass demon that maybe couldn't be killed, and why had Dad abandoned them to this? That's who he was mad at - Dad. Always Dad. And conveniently, he was nowhere around for him to actually express his rage.

Sam swallowed back every nasty thing he was going to say, and returned his focus to the book. It was incredibly old, and the pages were super thin, almost like onion paper, so you had to turn them exceedingly carefully. It occurred to him he should probably be wearing gloves so skin oils didn't get on the page, but too late now.

The first page showed an old drawing of an incredibly ugly, almost troll like thing with leathery red skin, two thick horns on its head, and a face like a hairball and a piranha had a love child. Goddamn. Was that what oni looked like? How had they not seen this grotesque thing if it was around?

Dean joined him, and saw what he was looking at. "Holy shit. No wonder they can be invisible. They are fugly."

Sam really didn't want to have to ask, but honestly he could put it off no longer. "What are we supposed to do if we can't kill this thing?"

Dean grimaced. "Right now, I've got no fucking idea."

Well, at least they were on the same page.


	4. Hard Luck Kid

_**4 - Hard Luck Kid**_

Dean had to mentally talk himself out of screaming twice. He lost the battle not to punch something, but at least he waited until he went off to the bathroom, and then he punched a stall wall. Not hard enough to hurt his hand, but enough to feel something under his knuckles. He also may have kicked the trash can too aggressively, but it was already damaged. Sucked wasn't enough of a word for this situation. This was a full on clusterfuck.

While still hidden away in the bathroom, he tried Dad one more time. Voice mail again. Fuck fuck _fuck_!

Was there a bright side here? Maybe that it was a Japanese demon, and not one of the black eyed bastards who seemed to want to kill everything that meant anything to him? No, it was a Japanese demon that was maybe invisible, maybe unkillable, and could effect several people at once. Fuck!

Okay. Dean gave himself thirty seconds to lose it, then he made himself focus. If things weren't bad enough, Sammy was clearly very ill. Of course, maybe some down time would help him, although he had no idea what he reacted to in the front room of the shop. Dean thought it smelled pretty pleasant actually; mostly like rosemary with a hint of lavender. Sam reacted as though it was all stinky cheese and month old jock straps. What the hell was that about? Maybe he just didn't like rosemary.

He was alone in the bathroom, but he still felt like a crazy person when he looked in the mirror, and said, very quietly, "Pull yourself together, Winchester. You can do this." Actually, Dean was pretty sure he couldn't. Dad had trained him for a lot of things - so many goddamn things. He was convinced he could survive in a post-apocalyptic world. if he woke up tomorrow in Road Warrior times, or on the troop transport in Aliens, he figured he could manage. But this? This seemed impossible.

Okay, he had to clear emotions out of this and focus on what he could do. The more information they got on this oni was a good thing. He could get some food down Sam, see if that helped, and figure out if there was some way to make the stuff in the protection bag bigger, or more to scale. If they couldn't kill it, could they trap it? Could they lock it in a box and throw it in the Hudson where it would never be close enough to people to make them freak out? Was there a Buddhist temple near by? You'd think there'd have to be. Okay, this was starting to feel like something he could work on. He had an angle. As Dad said, once you had leverage, you had a chance. This was that.

Dean washed his hands, took a couple of calming breaths, and checked himself in the mirror to make sure none of it showed on his face. No rage, no sorrow, no misery, no desperation. Just a steely fuck you stare, and a rigid jaw that said he could take anything the world threw at him and spit it back in their face. Fake it until you made it.

He came out of the bathroom in time to encounter Shawn in the hallway. Apparently Xiu had sent him on the food run and he looked super thrilled about playing delivery boy for a couple of white kids, Dean made sure to pay him for his trouble, though, as he had a nice wad of cash from suckering some cocky dudes down at an actual pool hall. You could find a ton of shit in New York that you honestly thought was gone for good. Including oni, apparently.

The bags of food smelled amazing, and it reminded Dean he hadn't had anything to eat since those couple of candy bars he had earlier. Okay, more than a couple. He was still famished, though.

Upstairs, he found Sam still absorbed in the book, and Xiu had clearly been back, as there was a teapot and a couple of mugs on the table. It smelled like lemons. "Hey, she brought us some lemongrass green tea," Sam said, before taking a sip from his mug. "It's really good."

Dean wasn't really a fan of tea, unless it was a Long Island Iced Tea, which was okay, but could really fuck you up. Still, he told Xiu that Sam was sick, and if she had anything that she could bring him, it'd be cool, and to add it to his Dad's tab. That was the least he could do. And Sam did look a little better, but whether that was the tea's doing, the reading, or the down time - or all of it - was unclear.

Dean put the bags down, and started sorting out the baos between them, little steamed buns full of pork and curried beef. And they were fucking delicious. He could have eaten all of these, and gone back for thirds, but now was not the time to pig out. He might be fighting soon. Still, he savored each one. God, these were great. He wondered how you made them, and if he could ever learn to make them. Dean tried some of the tea, and it wasn't terrible. Not great either, but it was liquid, and he needed to keep hydrated for those same fighting soon reasons.

"I was thinking," Dean said, as he was slowly working on his last bao. He wanted to swallow it whole, but he was trying not to eat like a feral dog. Even Sam, who hadn't eaten a lot lately, was wolfing down his. "If we can't kill it, maybe we can trap it."

Sam looked at him across the table. His eyes were definitely brighter. "Great. How?"

"Still working on that. What have you got?"

"There seem to be as many oni as grains of sand on a beach."

"Please, things are bad enough. No hyperbole."

"Great use of a five dollar word," Sam said, giving him a sarcastic thumb's up. Dean gave him a kick under the table, but mostly missed on purpose. He must be feeling better if he could be a little punk ass bitch. "It's hardly that. There are hundreds of different kinds. I'm trying to narrow it down by effects." Sam paused, and looked at the bao he'd just bitten into. "Holy shit. I think this is the best thing I've ever eaten."

"I know, right? I think that's one of the barbecued pork ones. Amazing. When we're done here, I'm going to move into that restaurant and refuse to leave. I'll live out by the Dumpster if I have to."

"I might join you," Sam agreed. He quickly seemed to shake himself out of the food fantasy. But Dean was fifty percent serious. As soon as he planted the demon that killed his mother, he was moving into a Chinatown Dumpster. That might actually be a happy ending for him."There's not a lot on what kills them. There's a bit on annoy or scare, but many of those are very oni specific. We need to know what kind we're dealing with before we can really hit it where it hurts."

"But Buddhists and beans are a general weak spot?"

Sam gave him one of his bitchy looks, which meant he was definitely feeling better. He still looked a bit ruddy, but maybe that was just going to be his thing now. "It's Buddhist temples and aduzki beans. Throwing Richard Gere and a handful of pinto beans at them won't do any good."

Dean enjoyed the mental image of that. Throwing celebrities and dried beans at a demon, and making it keel over dead. "Is there any explanation for either of those?"

Sam finished the last bite of his bao, primly wiped his hands on a napkin, and carefully opened up a page in the book. "Uh, there's something in here about Buddhist monks cleansing a village of oni. If you think of it as priests clearing out demons, it makes perfect sense. It's a different belief system, but the same principal is at work."

"Where do the beans come into it?"

Sam grimaced, flipping through a couple of pages carefully. He was treating the book with extra care, probably because it was so old, and the pages looked ridiculously thin. "To be honest, your guess is as good as mine. I haven't come across anything about adzuki beans yet."

"So it's the bean version of salt?"

That made Sam snicker, which felt like an accomplishment. He hadn't made him laugh in days. "That might be a reach."

"But you can't deny it, can you?"

Sam rolled his eyes and made a noise of disgust, but he was still smiling. "Oh my god, are you petty enough to consider that a victory?"

"Fuck yeah I am. Woo!" Dean raised a fist in the air like he won something, Sam continued to shake his head, but he was laughing at his stupid, petty brother. So things couldn't be all bad.

When Sam took a break to use the bathroom - considering he'd had about half a pot of tea, Dean was beginning to wonder if he had a hollow leg - Dean took over looking in the book. Sam was correct, although he'd never doubted him. There were a fuckton of oni, and they could get weirdly specific. There seemed to be quite a few that could stretch their bodies weirdly, like elongate their necks or torsos, that sounded super creepy. Why was that even an option?

Dean was scanning pages, hoping to find something that sounded the least bit familiar and to his shock, found it. There was a small oni known as an amanjaku, which apparently translated out to "heavenly evil spirit" - wasn't that a contradiction? Anyway, supposedly they could draw out a person's darkest desires, and compel them to act on them. Dean considered everything he'd seen - the violence, the weird bits like the businessman burning his briefcase and the old lady tackling the young guy - and realized that could totally fit. Not everyone's darkest desire was to murder someone.

Although ... did that mean Rob's darkest desire was to murder them? To make their Dad suffer? Super dark there Rob. Complete dick move.

Sadly there wasn't a whole lot on the things, except they were thought to be named after a wicked deity in Shinto myth, and that the creature was considered a direct opponent of Buddhist beliefs. Was there a clue to fighting them here? Dean wasn't sure. They did need to get to a Buddhist temple ASAP.

He heard the creak of the stairs, and assumed Sam was back, but it was Xiu who appeared. "Hey, we're about to get out of your hair," he told her. "Thanks for the tea and the use of your books."

She nodded, but seemed distracted. "When you see your Dad next, tell him ... the cleansing didn't work, and will not work. Not in a case like this."

Dean cocked his head, rolling those words around. He knew his Dad had spent some time talking to Xiu while Dean put stuff in the car, and went to a guy down the way to buy some silver. He had no idea what they talked about, and Dad claimed he was after some rare herb, but Dean had thought he was lying. This cryptic comment from her seemed to confirm that. "What? What cleansing?"

"Your Dad will know."

"He said whatever you said to him you could say to me."

She gave him a smile best described as pitying. "You're a better liar than that, Dean. You've gotta be."

Another curious comment. What did she mean by that?

Before he could ask, she stepped aside and Sam joined them, looking between the two of them like maybe he interrupted something. "Everything okay?"

Dean wanted answers, but he didn't want to drag Sam into this. Besides, if his Dad wouldn't tell him the truth about all of this, he didn't see Xiu being any more amenable. That man and his goddamn secrets."Yeah, I think I found our oni. Amanjaku."

Sam came over to look, and Xiu's head snapped back, as if Dean had thrown a punch at her. "Amanjaku? One of those is here, in New York?"

He shrugged as he stood, swinging the book around for Sam. "I guess. It seems to tick all the boxes."

"Fuck. Those are nasty. Wait here a second." She didn't wait for any response, she just headed down the stairs.

Sam, who had been reading the page, nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like what we might be dealing with. Doesn't really give us any weaknesses though, does it?"

"No, but now would probably be a good time to befriend a Buddhist monk."

Sam sighed, closing the book. "I guess we don't really have a choice in the matter." He put the book back on the shelf where Xiu had retrieved it, and then came back and finished off the tea in his cup. Oh god, was Sam now going to start drinking green tea every day? Xiu may have created a monster here.

Speaking of which she returned, and instantly slung something at Dean, which he managed to catch before it hit him in the stomach. It was a backpack, and when he looked inside, he found a cannister of salt, and what he assumed to be a bag of dried adzuki beans. "You're thinking of trapping it? Good call. Bury it in those, and it'll probably be unable to get out."

"Probably?" Sam asked.

"There are few certainties in this life," she told him. "You, of all people, should know that."

Dean looked up at that. What did she know about Sam? What was she saying? Dean would swear this was the first time the two had met. Had Dad talked to her about Sam? Why? Even he looked confused. But before she could be questioned, she tossed him a small silk bag. "And if you can get close enough, open that down its throat. It should paralyze it for a little bit, but not too long, so whatever you're gonna do to it, do it fast."

Dean looked inside it but it seemed like a melange of salt, dried adzuki beans, holly leaves, and what smelled for all the world like ginger root. He also thought it smelled like it would make good chicken seasoning. God, he wanted another sack full of those bao. Dean tucked the bag inside the backpack, and shouldered it. "Thanks for the help, Xiu."

She nodded. "Good luck, you two. Don't get killed."

"That's goal number one," Dean assured her.

They headed down the stairs, and Dean couldn't shake the look Xiu gave them. It wasn't pitying exactly; it seemed caught somewhere between sympathy and regret. Dean wasn't sure he liked it, but what could he do?

When they hit the street, night was in full effect, and Chinatown was lit up in a way that was pretty and impressive, but probably routine for those who lived and worked here. He saw a few people in costumes too, but not many. Sam glanced at Dean nervously before asking, "You know we don't really have a plan, right?"

"Yeah kid, I know."

To show how concerned he was about this, he let the kid comment go. "How do we make it show itself? Will the protection bags actually help us if we get close to it? Can this thing be at all physically hurt, or is it immune to that?"

"Please stop. You're gonna give yourself a panic attack."

"I am not." Sam scowled, and again, this was a good sign. He wasn't as sick as he had been. "Please tell me you have some ideas, beyond Buddhist monk."

"I do." Nothing great. Since the amanjaku seemed to be coming for them, Dean was trying to figure out if he could use himself as bait, lure it in, and then attack it. Again, it was a plan full of holes and too many what ifs. So many things could go wrong, it was kind of hilarious. They were so fucked.

Dean also was trying to figure out what his darkest desire was. He kind of sort of acted on most of them, when he had the chance, so he was kind of blanking. Shouldn't be a danger to Sam. Other people? You wouldn't think so. He had no desire to murder anyone; killing monsters was enough. So what did that leave?

And you wouldn't think Sam - kind, thoughtful, occasionally snotty teenage brat Sam - would have any truly deadly dark desires. But could he say that for certain? Dean had very limited experience in this area, but from what he had, it told him the seemingly nicest, most reserved people were hiding some deeply fucked up shit. Just look at Rob, for example. But he couldn't imagine Sam that way at all. He was just a kid. Which was exactly why Dean had to be bait. He had the fucked up id; let the amanjaku come for his darkness. And then ... what? He had this mental image of throwing a burlap sack over its head and carrying it off, but he should be so lucky to live in a universe where that could possibly happen.

The Buddhist temple was not far from Xiu's shop. It was actually a surprisingly sedate looking building, save for the roof that looked kind of like a giant's hat, and the red and gold painted doors, that made him think you'd open them and walk straight into a musical number.

Dean actually hung back and let Sam lead the way, because he was naturally less threatening, and also, Dean knew none of the protocols here and didn't want to accidentally offend anyone. They needed all the help they could get.

First of all, what Dean hadn't really expected, was that it was amazing inside. No stained glass windows or pews or anything besides cushions on the floor, that dominant red and gold color scheme, and a feeling of space that was rare in New York. Also rare? Silence. There was a water feature somewhere, making a gentle noise, but otherwise it was extremely quiet, and smelled like sandalwood. This was actually really nice.

While Sam went off looking for a monk, Dean decided to go up to the Buddha altar and take a look around. Yep, cross-legged bald heavy guy, who looked happy, which was always weird. Most religious statuary didn't look the least bit happy. And in Catholic churches, they were often bleeding or being tortured to death, because ... well, hell if he knew. Dean knew it had things that could be helpful in hunting, but he never actually paid much attention to religion. It was fine if you liked that sort of thing, and you found it helpful, but he didn't. The world was going to die bloody and screaming no matter what you believed or didn't believe. He honestly wished he could believe in something that would help him sleep at night, and banish all the nightmares, but he never had it in him. Just another category in which he fell short of everyone else.

"Forgive me for bothering you, but you looked troubled," a woman's voice said, startling him.

Dean had to suppress the urge to whip out his gun as he looked to his left and saw a bald woman wearing a red robe. How had she snuck up on him? No one snuck up on him! Usually. Her age was impossible to guess - anywhere between early thirties to early fifties - and her hazel, almond shaped eyes seemed amused by him. She knew she startled him? And while he was pretty sure he wasn't into bald women, she was kind of cute. "Uh yeah. Fighting demons and all."

She nodded. "Literal or figurative? Or both?"

What the what? Was this a trap? Dean decided to play dumb, which wasn't hard. "There are only figurative demons."

She smiled. "You don't need to be coy with me. You're a little young for a hunter, though, aren't you?"

Holy shit. "How do you know I'm a hunter?"

"You carry yourself like you're about to be attacked. And you were about a second away from pulling a weapon on me when I bothered you. We really don't like weapons in the meditation hall, by the way."

Well, goddamn it. There was a whole hunter's network he knew nothing about. Somehow it figured Dad wouldn't clue him into this. "What if I told you an amanjaku is coming, and I need to figure out a way to trap it before anyone else gets hurt?"

Her eyes widened. "Who the hell was stupid enough to let an amanjaku out?"

Dean was afraid the answer was his father, so he didn't say it. "No clue. Can it be done?"

She thought for a moment, lips compressing down to a thin line. "Possibly. They have been captured before."

"Really? Do you know how?"

"I'll have to go back into our records, but I believe an entire temple managed to capture one in ... was it the nineteen hundreds? A while ago."

"An entire temple?" Dean replied. Now he knew what crestfallen both meant and felt like. "So we're talking ..?"

"Dozens at least. Of the most righteous people."

Well, fucking wonderful. That left him and Sam out. Also, they were two kids. What the fuck could they do? Dean was trying to think of a non-cowardly way to ask if she could somehow do this and spare him the pain of humiliation and failure, when a young Asian guy came running in. "Holy crap, something weird's going on," he said, pausing to take a breath. "People just started attacking each other outside like, the whole city is having a psychotic break or something."

The woman looked at him, wide eyed, and Dean knew she must have figured it out.

The amanjaku was here. There was no time for detailed plans. Since she seemed nice, and also was clearly a hunter, he said, "Look after my little brother for me, okay?"

Dean took a deep breath, steeled himself as best he could, and headed out the door to meet his doom.


	5. 5 Out Of 6

_**5 - 5 Out of 6**_

It was like walking into the worst possible riot. Instead of damaging things, people were damaging each other.

Okay, that wasn't completely true. Dean saw a teenage girl lob a garbage can through a window and start looting a shop. But for the most part, people were hurting each other.

Dean ended up grabbing a man who had tackled a woman and started tearing at her clothes, and because he wasn't tolerating that shit, he rammed his head into the wall until he was out cold. Dean left him to bleed on the sidewalk. A man tried to kill another one in front of him, so he knocked the attacker out, but then the victim tried to come after him, and Dean had to put him down too. Madness.

"I"m here, amanjaku, you motherfucker!" Dean yelled, standing in the middle of the street. People and a car lit on fire were keeping traffic from coming through. "Come get some!" With the burning car sending a pillar of smoke into the night sky, and people fighting all around him, it felt weirdly dream like. Or maybe he had entered Road Warrior world, and he hadn't realized it.

Dean tried to project nothing but anger and intensity while inside, he was sifting sand through his hands and wondering where the soil had gone. What did he know? What was going to help him? He didn't know why the amanajaku was after them. He didn't know if he could hurt it. He didn't know what he was going to do if the protection bag failed and it unleashed his darkness. All he knew was this needed to stop before anyone else got hurt. He was essentially unarmed, but he had to make his stand here. Dad trained him to fight, and that was what he was going to do, until he physically couldn't do it anymore. It was all he had, and everything that defined him as a person. Now there was a good epitaph for him - Dean Winchester, Professional Wrecking Ball. He wasn't the smartest, but damn, could he break shit.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something red.

Dean turned, but there was nothing there but a lamp post. But it was definitely not red. He turned his head away, and wondered if it was wishful thinking, or he finally caught his first glimpse of the amanjaku. Maybe you couldn't see it head on. Maybe all you got was glimpses, like a ghost that refused to come out of the shadows.

It wasn't near the lamp post, but he started scanning the street through the corner of his eyes, aware this probably looked ridiculous. But everybody was too busy attacking each other to notice his dorky ass. Dean moved his head slowly, checking out of the corner of his eye on one side, and then the other. He was about to give up when he saw a streak of red headed straight for him, and he was body checked by the goddamn amanjaku.

* * *

Sam knew the amanjaku had caught up to them when he heard screaming from the street outside.

He turned and headed back to the meditation hall, derailing his current train of thought. Which was ... had Xiu slipped him something medicinal in the tea? Because his fever was down if not altogether gone. Also his lingering cold symptoms had cleared away. It was amazing, and slightly improbable. Almost as if she knew what made him sick in the first place and gave him an antidote. Which was crazy. It was just a cold.

Also, she was clearly an herbalist of some skill and experience. This wouldn't be like regular homeopathic medicine, where you were throwing a dart at a board and mostly relying on the placebo effect. Xiu had something that could help him, and it did. End of story. He might feel lousy later, and his fever might rebound. Maybe this was a temporary fix.

But in his mind, he was connecting it to that weird fragment he heard between Dean and Xiu. She wanted him to pass on a message to their Dad ... something about a cleansing? Sam felt there was something even weirder than he could imagine going on there, but even Dean sounded baffled by it. Dad was on a secret mission again. How many secret missions could that man have? It was ridiculous, and made Sam angry, now that he had the strength to be angry. Why did Dad drag them along if he was just going to leave on his secret errand things again? He'd rather have been staying at Bobby's. At least that felt kind of like home.

By the time he made it back to the meditation hall, he saw a Buddhist nun and a man in street clothes, but no Dean. And that's when he heard, from outside, "I'm here amanjaku, you motherfucker! Come get some!"

Oh no. The stupid asshole! They had no plan! Did he think he was going to go out there and machismo it to death? The nun was standing by the open door, and she turned to look at him as he approached. She had very kind eyes. "You must be the brother."

Sam didn't know what to say to that, so he only nodded. Brother to the stupid asshole who just walked outside to get killed. How did that help anyone? Dean being dead didn't solve the unkillable demon problem.

"The balls on that kid," the man said. "What the fuck does he think he's doing?"

Before Sam could say he probably had no idea what he was doing, the nun said, "He's trying to save his brother. He's trying to save us." She suddenly gasped, and put a hand to her mouth. "What's more righteous than that?"

Sam wasn't sure what she was talking about, but she grabbed the man's arm, and said "Go get Lim. We have to help him."

The man in street clothes had the appropriate reaction, in that he stared at her like she was insane. "What? How the hell can we do that? We don't even know what's going on out there."

"Just go get him." She gave him a stern enough look that he acquiesced and ran off.

Sam looked out, and by the time he saw Dean in all the chaos of fire and violence, it was just in time to see him thrown across the street by an invisible force. Sam meant to go out and help him - how he had no idea - when the nun put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. "I have to help him," he said. He did, even though he didn't know the how of it. Dean wouldn't leave him to that, so how could Sam leave him to that? Dad let him down like it was a hobby of his, like he was being paid to do it, but Dean never did. Even if he was a tremendous asshole the rest of the time.

Her eyes were still kind, but he could see the steel beneath. You did not fuck with this woman, or you paid for it dearly, Buddhist nun or not. "We won't beat the amanjaku with violence."

Sam had actually been afraid of that. Although that book hadn't had a plethora of information, nothing suggested you could kill one, or even come close to it. "What do we beat it with, then?"

"First, tell me - you have no sensitivities to sage smoke, do you?"

Sam felt like that was an odd question out of nowhere, but then he remembered how sage smoke was used in purification rituals, and things started clicking into place.

Fantastic. This was the right place to come after all.

* * *

It was a little like getting hit by a small car. A Toyota, or maybe a Kia. Something small enough that you feel embarrassed by admitting you were hurt by it, even though force and velocity guaranteed you'd be hurt no matter how tiny it was. As The Tick oh so famously (?) said, gravity was a harsh mistress, and so was all basic physics.

Dean slammed into a brick wall and sunk down to the sidewalk, struggling to catch his breath. His backpack actually cushioned a little of the blow, but he still had the wind knocked out of him. It was only when he was catching his breath that he saw there were claw marks on his coat. It had shredded a bit of it but hadn't broken his skin, so that was something. Little red dude not only packed a punch, he had talons. Sure, why not? Maybe he was poison too, full of acid blood and armored like a tank. Just load him up with all the offensive weapons.

While Dean was sitting on the asphalt, waiting for his breath to return, he felt this odd wave crash over him. It was purely emotional, or psychic, or both, but not physical, and yet he sort of registered it as physical. It was ... something. It was amorphic and smothering, and felt like it was covering him like a blanket while trying to find a way in.

That was its effect, wasn't it? It was trying to find his deepest, darkest desire. The protection bag must have still been holding, because he didn't think it was successful, but he knew the fact that he could feel it was a tremendously bad sign. Up close, the bag was weak. Prolonged exposure to the demon might make it useless. So he was on a clock here. No, a stopwatch. Move fast, or don't move at all.

As Dean sat there, he drew up his leg, dipped his hand into his boot, and pulled out the silver knife. Silver might not work on the amanjaku; in fact, he had no lore or data suggesting it would. But silver burned a lot of things. He was willing to risk it. He didn't have too many other cards to play.

Dean was still sitting there, pretending to be recovering when he looked down at the sidewalk, and saw a reddish blur approaching from his left. He flipped the knife from his right to his left hand and blindly stabbed.

The knife broke on impact, the blade fragmenting and falling into several bite sized pieces, like safety glass. But he also heard the slightest noise, sort of like if a mouse could curse, and wasn't hit. Dean saw no signs that he'd hurt it much at all, but he'd caught it off guard, and at the very least startled it, which was some kind of victory. He checked out the hilt to see if it had any cutting edge at all, but no. He couldn't recall the last time he saw a silver knife shattered so thoroughly. Amanjakus must have been made of titanium and resentment, and therefore could not be harmed by any weaponry. You'd think that would have been their headline in the big book of onis. "Why us?" Dean asked. He couldn't see it right now, and he had no reason to believe it could understand a thing he said, but he felt like he needed to say it. "We've done nothing to you. Why are you after us?"

He wished it could talk. He wouldn't even mind dying so much if it would just tell him the reason for any of this. Had Dad ... done something? Had he inadvertently violated a shrine? Pissed off a goblin with a grudge? How did this fit in to his haunted object search in the first place?

Unless it wasn't a haunted object. Unless it was a complete lie, as Dad had been doing to him lately. Or maybe he and Rob thought it was, but it led to this thing. A type of demon they had never encountered before that made Rob turn on Dad. Which made him wonder anew if he was even alive. But part of Rob's ramble seemed to indicate Dad would have to be alive to suffer through the loss of his children. So where the fuck was he? If Dad wanted to wait for a dramatic moment to swoop in for the rescue, now was the time.

He pulled out a gun, flicked off the safety, and kept looking down at the sidewalk as he stood up, back against the wall. A bullet would probably do no more damage than a knife, but he wanted to startle it again. Even if it killed him, he wanted it to remember Dean Winchester made it shit its pants.

He saw it coming in on the right, and blindly opened fire, guessing height wise it came out to just above his knee. Which was weird, right? You'd think something that small wouldn't have the charge and bite of an enraged rhino on crack, and yet, this things was a thousand pounds of trouble in a ten pound sack.

Dean heard that small noise, a mouse sneeze, almost buried under the barrage of bullets that bounced off it like it was made of adamantium, and it slammed into him again, sending him flying down the street. Impact with the pavement was jarring, but didn't hurt as much as the pain in his leg. He reached down and felt wetness, and knew this time its claws got through. He sincerely hoped they weren't poisoned, or this fight was over.

He sat up, pocketed his gun, and felt this mood overtake him. It wasn't subtle, and he knew it must be the influence of the thing, waiting to crack his darkness. But knowing it was happening and being able to stop it were two different things, and Dean could feel it prying open his brain, sifting through his thoughts with spectral fingers, searching for his deepest, darkest desire. He tried to mentally lock shit down, but how did you do that? He didn't know. Dad had never trained him for that, and probably couldn't. If you were going to get psychically assaulted, and you weren't psychic, all you could do was grit your teeth and hang on, and wait for your chance to murder the fucking son of a bitch attacking you.

For a blissful second, Dean thought it had failed, and the protection bag was holding. But then he felt himself flooded with agonizing, unendurable sorrow. It was like a wave of cold that started at his head and ended at his toes, and Dean was thoroughly baffled. What the hell was this? He then heard a weird noise, and it took a moment for him to realize the sound came from him. It was a sob.

Dean was crying.

Not subtle crying; not decorous, attractive crying. This was full on ugly sobbing, the screaming version of crying. Dean tried to put on the brakes - why the fuck was he crying? What was going on? - when he realized he fucking missed his Mom. He'd missed her for years. Sometimes she'd show up in dreams which would eventually become nightmares. They'd always end the same way, with him remembering what the smell of her burning flesh was like that night. That night his life as he knew it ended. He didn't even know it at the time, but that was when he stopped being a kid, and became something else. This horrible thing he was, half-man, half-child, all fucked.

His Dad's life ended that night too. His father died, and the drill sergeant who now occupied his skin was born. The one he could never please, never make happy, because he reminded him too much of the wife he lost, and he couldn't deal with it. He was a man who won fights and he lost the biggest one without ever realizing he was in a battle. He couldn't forgive himself, and he couldn't forgive Dean either. Sammy was lucky, because he was too young to know everything that died that night. He grew up unaware of what was missing.

But Dean knew. He knew it every goddamn day. Every day he woke disappointed to be awake again, and to know the nightmare of this life, had not stopped, would never stop, and this was all he had. His father would never really love him, because he was a walking reminder of his greatest loss. He couldn't even mourn his mother, because it was too painful. He couldn't be weak, because if he was, the entire facade of his personality would collapse. He'd have to admit that sometimes it hurt so much, it was like he had this hole in the center of him, one that ached as physically as any wound but one he couldn't drink away, or fuck away, or drug away. Dean felt like he was empty most of the time, and one good shove would make him crumble. He was the amazing hollow boy, with nothing in him, an aching void that would never be filled. The abyss made human. If it was just physical he could take it; he could grit his teeth and get through it, as he had a million other wounds. But this was so much worse. This didn't heal. It couldn't.

Dean sat against the wall, sobbing uncontrollably, no longer concerned about the fight or the demon or any of it. Every sob was like a punch in the chest, but inward instead of outward, like he was punching himself over and over again. Somehow he was disappointed that his deepest, darkest desire was he didn't want to do this anymore. He wanted to be done; he wanted to be free; he wanted to be dead.

And in the back of his mind, he wished the demon would hurry up and kill him, because he didn't want to feel like this any longer.


	6. Weak

_**6 - Weak**_

By the time Sam returned to the doorway, he couldn't see Dean anymore. He felt ice in the pit of his stomach, and wondered if the demon could have killed him that fast. If it had, Sam was going to figure out some way to destroy it, even if it took years.

But he couldn't think like that. Dean survived; he was surviving. That was his gift. He was a stubborn asshole who somehow always managed to hang on. He was basically the male version of the horror movie final girl which, oddly enough, Dean would probably take as a compliment. There was so much smoke out there right now it was kind of hard to see, that was all. And the irony was, Sam was going to add more.

There was a cleansing ritual, which Sam didn't know, because he hadn't studied Buddhism all that much. But he had to admit that now he was curious, and if they survived the night, he was definitely going to rectify that. Lim was one of the monks, and he and the nun, whose name was Chenda, got a couple of other church members to bring out ceremonial bowls and set them out in front of the temple. Lim and Chenda went out and started chanting something, and a third person occasionally intoned a melodious but odd sounding bell, and Sam headed out with the sage.

Essentially they were smudge sticks, but he had a whole bag of them, and as soon as he got them burning good, sending scented smoke into the night air, he was supposed to distribute them around at roughly regular intervals, starting from temple grounds and moving outward. The whole point was to make the ground inhospitable to the amanjaku, which would probably be repelled by this. If Sam managed to get these distributed right, there was a possibility they could trap it within a narrow zone, and then ... physically trap it? Okay, they hadn't gotten that far. But if they could cut some of the violence, and put the fear of Buddha into the amanjaku, that would be a start. One thing at a a time. Walk before you could run.

He started tossing the smoldering bundles around, adding even more smoke to the street, but at least this smelled okay as opposed to the burning metal and gasoline from the torched car. When he came upon shards of silver on the sidewalk, he wondered if this was a Dean sign. How had he shattered a knife so thoroughly? Oh shit - had he actually been able to tag the amanjaku, invisible or not? Well, yeah. That sounded like a very Dean thing to do. Had it helped at all? Now he started looking for him, or his body, but ... no, he wasn't thinking like that. Again, Dean was a final girl. He'd be okay. He would believe that until he had definitive proof otherwise.

Sam had lit and thrown down his eighth clump of sage when what seemed like a small car hit him in the back, sending him slamming forward into the street, just barely missing a pool of shattered glass. He turned, grabbing a clump of dried sage out of his bag, and lit it. He shoved it forward, and he thought he saw something outlined in the smoke for a millisecond. It quickly moved away, like it knew it had been spotted, or it hated the smell. Or possibly both. But this was a good sign, right?

Sam was up on his feet, waving the sage smoke around hoping to see this ugly bastard again, when he got hit by a wave of dizziness. No, not that exactly ... it was weird. It was like a feeling, but not his own.

Oh shit, the amanjaku influence. He was okay though, right? Sam didn't feel anything except slightly off balance. Although frankly breathing in all this sage smoke was starting to make him feel that way too. It was powerful stuff. He bet he never got it out of these clothes.

He resumed spreading out smoking bundles of sage, and found himself tackled again, thrown bodily into a parked car, hard enough that his head broke the glass on the passenger side window. Sam also felt a sharp pain in his arm, and looked down to find the sleeve of his jacket torn, and blood oozing from a gash in his arm. Great. Amanjaku had claws. He hoped it wasn't toxic.

Sam retrieved another clump of sage and lit it up, all the while feeling this calm coolness overcome him. It wasn't unpleasant. It was a certainty, something nice and logical he could hold on to as he went about smudging more of the street.

The next time he saw Dad, he was going to murder him.

It didn't need to be drawn out or anything. Shooting him in the head would do nicely. He was a hypocrite at best, and at worst, he was a self-absorb fuckhead who was happy to abuse his kids as a way of getting revenge on a demon that seemed to elude him for a living. Sure, he abused Dean more than he ever did him; Dad seemed to save his rage and most punitive pronouncements for Dean, who was too weak and broken to mount much of an assault against him. But Sam knew the score. Kids couldn't be and shouldn't be soldiers. Dad had to know that too, but did it stop him? No. He was too invested in his crusade. Sam was done. If Rob hadn't killed the miserable son of a bitch, Sam was more than happy to finish the job. If only he had any idea where he was, he'd have run off and done it right now. He was itching to do it. He had a gun, and in a bit of poetic happenstance, it was Dad's. Seemed only fitting he'd be killed by one of his own weapons. And the gun too.

Sam lit another bundle of sage, and wondered why he was doing this. He had a Dad to killl.

* * *

Dean kept trying to get past it, to get beyond it. Okay, the amenjaku had unlocked something in him, fine. It didn't mean he couldn't stand, couldn't fight. Except yes, it did.

He was finding it hard to breathe, because he was now just weeping snot and tears like the world's most disgusting fountain, and he really didn't want to get up. He didn't mind dying here. This blanket of sorrow left him feeling enervated in a way little ever had. Even massive blood loss had left him feeling more energized. He just wanted to collapse in on himself, implode like a demolished building, but much like the amanjaku finishing him off, it wasn't happening. He was still here. He needed to get up off his ass and keep going.

But he didn't want to. There was no point. Even if Dean wanted to win this fight, he couldn't. He wanted to start apologizing to everyone for failing them, but he couldn't even save himself. How could he save anyone else?

Was it smokier than it had been a few minutes ago? Dean thought it was, and wondered if another car had caught on fire, except the smoke smelled a lot better. If he wasn't crying, his eyes would probably be watering anyway.

There was a new noise too. Not only people arguing and cursing, but chanting. And a bell sounded every now again. What was going on?

Curiosity was starting to win over his grief. He still wasn't ready to stand, or able to stop crying, but at least he was considering these things, and not curled in a fetal position on the pavement. That had to be worth something.

"Head's up," Xiu shouted, and Dean looked to see she was far down the street, and probably couldn't see him. It was a general warning as she threw a cylinder high into the air, which exploded like a firework. Except it wasn't multicolored sparks that came out of it, but a rain of liquid that seemed to cover at least half the street, including Dean, who got some of it splashed on his arms and legs.

He was about to smell it when the scent hit him hard - peppermint oil. Wow, that was strong. It stung his eyes and his otherwise clogged nose, and it was a little like smelling salts, because he felt ... if not lighter, clearer. Okay, so he didn't want to be a monster hunter. He wanted to mourn his parents like a normal person. Maybe he was stuck being a hunter, but he could find some space to mourn sometime, even if it was alone in a bar. No one had to know. He could carve out a couple hours some night to grieve and pretend he was a normal. It didn't seem like it was good enough, but it would have to do.

Dean found a clean part of his sleeve and wiped tears and snot from his face. Both might still be falling for a bit, but he had a job to finish. He used the wall behind him to stand, suddenly aware he still had the backpack. Okay. Now he had to figure out how to use what he had.

The chanting seemed to be coming from the Buddhist temple. Had Sam talked them into helping? Good on him. Maybe that would work.

Dean really hated how fragile he felt. It was like the amanjaku had emotionally violated him, and holy fuck, did he want to make that little bastard pay for that. He encountered a burning pile of sage on the sidewalk, which explained the smell, and the new smoke. But Dean also noticed something else. He could see patterns in the smoke. Patterns suggesting movement.

Oh ho ho. Was the little fucker getting painted with smoke and oil? Because when the pattern shifted, he caught a strong whiff of mint, and heard faint but still audible sizzling, like bacon in a frying pan. Mint oil was like acid to it? Good to know.

Dean took off his backpack, and found the sack of beans, opening it and bringing out a handful. He had a plan. A shitty plan, but hey, beggars couldn't be choosers could they? He then grabbed up one of the piles of burning sage, and headed towards the movement.

He started dropping beans around it in a wide circle, using the sage like a torch to keep it at bay, and it seemed to be working, but he had no idea how he was going to beat it to the other, open side, when he saw a familiar figure down the street. "Sam?"

Sam turned, and for a moment gave him the funniest look, like he didn't recognize him. There was something wrong with his eyes, wasn't there? They were hard and cold, and a little glazed. He was also dripping blood from his right am. The amanjaku had its claws in him, didn't it? Literally and figuratively. But he wasn't currently attacking anyone, or trying to kill him, so Dean figured, whatever inner darkness it had unleashed in Sam, they could work around it. It sounded like Sam said, "Final girl. I knew you'd show up." But that couldn't have been right, could it?

"I'm trying to trap this bastard. Give me a hand."

Sam continued giving him that strange, empty look, and for a moment he thought he was going to tell him to fuck off, but he finally sighed and and came forward, a smoking bundle of sage in his hand. "Do I want to know why you're crying?"

"I think I'm allergic to sage smoke. Come on, help me out here."

Sam really didn't seem to want to, but he did, using the sage shoved in the general direction of its face - maybe its neck or torso, kind of hard to say since there was no seeing this thing clearly - as Dean completed the weirdly lame and ridiculous circle of adzuki beans around it. He had to wipe more tears and snot away from his face a couple of times, but he felt like he had his emptiness under control. It ached like a mortar shell planted in his chest, but he had lived with that pain for years. Another few minutes made no difference at all.

The true test of this lame ass plan was to step back and see if it made a run for it. They did, and waited. The thing was zipping around in there, but nope, it wasn't crossing the bean barrier. Dean wanted to tell it it was fucking ridiculous, but he was pretty sure it didn't understand human language. Or if it did, it was completely ignoring everyone, so fuck it.

Dean took off his backpack, put the beans and salt aside, and got out the silk bag of paralyzing herbs. Now, to try and get the fucker to swallow the thing. "Wanna make it try and bite you?" Dean suggested. "When it goes for your arm, I'll grab it and throw this down its throat."

Sam was still giving him that flinty stare. He must not have gotten any peppermint oil on him. "Sometimes I want to kill you," he said.

"Feeling's mutual kid." Dean sighed, and said, "Fine, I'll do it." He really didn't want to do it. But he was the oldest and this was his stupid plan, and he was only half-convinced Sam might try and kill him if he tried to make him do it. Who knew the kid had such violence in him? Well he was a Winchester, so maybe that was a given, and Dean was the moron. Wasn't he? His deepest, darkest secret was he was miserable and a crybaby. What did that say about him? Sam was at least in with the general consensus of wanting to kill someone.

Dean threw a punch, aiming for what he assumed would be its face - or the back of its head - and pulled it a little, because he didn't want to shatter his hand if this thing was built like a concrete statue. That turned out to be the right call, as he made contact with something the density of marble, sending a shock of pain through his hand, and then it turned and bit, making Dean shout. It had a bite force like a car crusher; if it turned it all on, the amanjaku could have pulverized every single bone in his hand. But Dean had done a smart thing, for once - it was the hand with peppermint oil on it.

Before his bones snapped, the pressure lessened, and he heard the thing making gagging noises. He grabbed on to its still invisible lower jaw, feeling more needle teeth than he could count, and emptied the bag into its mouth, withdrawing his hand in time to hold its mouth shut like it was a dog being fed a pill. He could feel its skin under his hands, even if he couldn't see it, and it felt like some weird combination between crocodile skin and pebbles. Weird.

It stopped struggling and went dead still. "Finally," he said, picking up the backpack and throwing it over its head. He had to turn it over to shove the things feet and legs in, but he managed to get it in there, and then poured adzuki beans and salt over it before zipping it up. It had claws, and it'd get out once it shook off the herbs, but he was hoping the Buddhists could help him with that.

Sam was blinking rapidly and looking around, like he'd just woken up, and so were other people on the street. Dean touched his face, and realized he'd stopped crying. Fantastic. Buried under shit it didn't like, its influence disappeared. "You okay kid?" Dean asked.

Sam frowned at him. "What did I say about calling me kid?"

Great. He was fine.

Dean tried to pick up the backpack, and almost gave himself an instant hernia. Holy fuck, how could something so small weigh so goddamn much? But how could it have as big an attack force as it had too? This was some ultra concentrated demon form.

He ended up dragging the backpack towards the temple, where the Buddhists had finished their chant. "Got something sturdier we can throw this thing in?" Dean asked.

The bald woman from earlier turned to a man - monk? - wearing glassses, and said, "See? I told you he was."

Was that about him? Dean was about to ask, but then a man yelled, with horror and genuine pain, "My car!"

Yes, everything was going to be fine. Assuming they didn't get arrested within the next five minutes.


	7. Easy Life

_**7 - Easy Life**_

As it turned out, the Buddhists did have a sturdier container for the little monster.

A nice metal trunk, with some symbols etched into it that were probably mystical, but Dean didn't know. He'd have to ask Sam later.

With some help, Dean got the backpack in there, and more adzuki beans were thrown in before the trunk was locked. They apparently had some actual ground - grass in Chinatown! Of the non park or technically illegal variety! - and some of the guys were digging up a space for the box while the nun insisted he and Sam get their injuries treated. Dean didn't think they were that bad and it wasn't a big deal, but he quickly learned nuns, whether they were Buddhist or Catholic, were never to be defied.

They were very nice and very efficient, and they left Dean alone for a little bit in a quiet room, where he was happy to close his still aggravated eyes and give himself a moment of peace. He really didn't like everything the amanjaku stirred up. It wasn't that he didn't know he was miserable; of course he knew that. What he hated was being so weak. Dad was right. He once accused him of being weak. Dad apologized later, said he was just upset, but Dean knew he was right. He didn't know what to do about it. He was trying to be better. Dean knew he needed to try harder. His stomach felt as tight as a fist, and he desperately needed a drink, but his flask was empty. Damn it.

He and Sam rejoined the group in time to help lower the metal container into the hastily dug grave, which they threw more beans in before filling the hole, and putting a heavy stone Buddha on top of while the head monk did a solo cleansing ritual, which essentially rendered the ground consecrated. That demonic little fucker was never getting out of there. Good riddance.

Chinatown was crawling with cops by the time they left the temple, and Dean's phone rang as they were trying to sneak past with the rest of the crowd that wanted nothing to do with the 5-0. Luckily the guy whose car got torched was still very upset, and drawing most of the attention. Dean had hoped it was Dad, but it turned out to be Rob, who was near hysterical. Dean had to reassure him half a dozen times that they were fine - Dean almost brought up the nut punch, but was glad he didn't - and Dean got him to pick them up in his old beater car a couple of blocks over. It was almost a mistake, because he kept apologizing profusely enough that Dean was considering punching him unconscious again. Sam looked like he'd be fine with that.

Rob drove them out to where he'd left their Dad, which was at a decrepit looking pier, the kind of place that looked like you could buy heroin, a hooker, and get murdered within a five minute span. In other words, a fun place where Dean would totally hang out if he had a minute. Rob led them to an old shipping container that was chained shut. Rob needed bolt cutters to get through them, and inside, also partially chained up and bleeding from the head, was Dad.

According to the story Dean was able to pull out from the profusely apologizing Rob, they'd gotten a solid tip that an oni had been smuggled in, to be sold to an unscrupulous buyer. But it turned out not to be the oni they expected - a dangerous but more manageable kind called a namahage - but the far more dangerous and unstable amanjaku. Since Dad was the first one inside the container, he essentially "broke" whatever was holding the amanjaku back, and therefore it went after his family first. (Yep, disturbed a shrine, more or less. Smooth move, Dad.) But while Dad was unaffected by the amanjaku - he had the superior protection bag - Rob wasn't, and it all went as Dean imagined it did. Rob attacked Dad before he knew what was happening, and chained him up and went hunting for them, while the amanjaku did the same. Dad got free enough to call Dean and warn him, but he was unconscious when they opened the container, and once again this set off apologizing from Rob who helped Dean get him to the car. As soon as Dean got the chance, he was going to punch Rob again.

They took Dad to the nearest emergency room, but Dean let Rob deal with the cover story and everything, because he felt like he was done for the night. Wait, did he say night? They'd just hit the E.R. when Dean noticed the sun was coming up, turning the sky a rosy pink. They'd been doing this shit all night? Son of a bitch. No wonder he was so tired.

They still hung around the waiting room, because he was their Dad, and they weren't leaving until they knew he was all right, and Dean went hunting for some drinks. He considered coffee, but decided he didn't want caffeine right now, because what he really wanted was booze, and that would pale in comparison. He found a soda machine, bought one, and used a trick that he knew sometimes worked, where if you hit it in the right spot, a second can would drop. It worked this time, which almost made his morning. Yes, it was cheap but when you lived off credit card fraud and gambling, you learned to take whatever shortcuts you could.

He returned and gave Sam a can, wondering if he should talk to him or not. Sam had been super quiet since coming out from under the amanjaku's influence, and Dean imagined he was freaked out. Whatever darkness switch the demon flipped in him, he did not like it at all, and seemed to be struggling with how to handle it. Dean completely sympathized. He could have lived without knowing what a weak piece of shit he was, but hey, it was what it was.

Dean decided it was best if Sam brought it up, if he wanted to talk about it or not. He sipped his soda, and glanced at the TV playing in the upper corner of the waiting room, showing a local news channel. Apparently the craziness was being blamed on drugs and gangs? Which didn't sound even remotely plausible, but okay. He wasn't making up stories for the normal people to find palatable.

Finally, Sam said, "Do you smell like sage, or is it me?"

Dean smelled his jacket. "I think it's both of us. I also smell like mint, though. You?"

Sam sniffed his sleeve. "No, just sage."

Dean glanced around. The waiting room wasn't too crowded, but it was early morning. He imagined the Halloween rush was probably between midnight and three AM. "I bet we're the best smelling people in this joint."

"I kinda doubt there's much competition," Sam said, sinking low in his seat. After a couple of moments, where they waited to see if Rob was returning yet or not, Sam asked, "Do you think ... am I a bad person?"

Dean almost gave himself whiplash looking at Sam. "What? Are you fucking kidding me? You're the opposite of a bad person."

"It's just ..." he grimaced, looking down at the floor. Clearly he didn't want to admit whatever it was the amanjaku stirred up.

Neither did Dean. So he threw him a bone. "The stuff the demon called up? It doesn't matter. Our darkest desires only define us if we let them. We all have a breaking point, and it's okay. It's called being human. Forgive yourself and move on."

Sam sat up staring at him in wide eyed shock. "Who the fuck are you, and what did you do to my brother?"

"Oh, ha ha."

"Seriously. Should I do the exorcism ritual?"

"You can bite me is what you can do."

Rob reappeared, deep in discussion with a nurse. Dean leaned over, and whispered, "Do you think he's apologizing to her?"

Sam snorted a laugh, quickly covering his mouth to avoid attracting attention. If he could make Sam laugh, then things were okay. After a minute, Sam admitted, "I really thought you were gonna punch him again."

"I'm still considering it."

"Should we let Dad take the first swing?"

"If he wants it." Dean wondered if he'd even bother. No, it wasn't Rob's fault - all of them got overwhelmed by the amanjaku, save for Dad, who was too unconscious to feel it. Well, as far as they knew.

Dean wondered what his darkest desire would be. The same as his primary desire - hunting down the yellow eyed demon? Or maybe he would have helped Rob hunt down his worthless kids? Was that too harsh? Maybe he'd hunt down Dean, spare Sam.

"We're not gonna let him live this down, right?" Sam asked.

That caught Dean off guard. He wasn't sure what he was saying. "Huh?"

"That we planted a demon Dad couldn't. I mean, I know he was unconscious in a shipping container, but it still counts."

Did it, though? Dean could already imagine what his Dad would say when he found out about it. He'd say it took Dean too long to put the pieces together, and by not immediately heading to a less crowded part of the city - wherever that mythical place was - he had endangered more people than necessary. He'd tell him he never should have fallen victim to the amanjaku's influence, and he put Sam into more danger than he should have.

Oh fuck, he'd say a lot of things. But you know what? Dean refused to let the negative voice in his head have this one. He wasn't perfect, no, but they'd somehow survived the night, which he wouldn't have thought possible a couple hours earlier. They were in one piece, they found their Dad, and he wasn't dead. The amanjaku was buried on the property of its worst enemies, the Buddhists, who were really nice, as it turned out.

No. Today, Dean was going to let himself have this one. "Fuck yeah it does," Dean said, holding out a fist. Sam bumped it with a fist of his own, as they watched Rob and the nurse still discussing something. But they'd moved over to the left side of the corridor, meaning the right side was open. If they were sneaky they could get past.

"Wanna go see how Dad is?" Dean asked. It was a stupid question, and he knew it.

Sam nodded, getting to his feet. "Let's go."

It could have gone better, sure, but it could have gone much worse. And if that wasn't the Winchester motto, Dean didn't know what was.

* * *

 _The End_


End file.
